He
picked the winner of the Delaware primary last month, having endorsed
Christine O’Donnell in her come-from-behind challenge to Rep.
Mike Castle.

And
in June, he began raising support for one of the most important Gun
Owners of America-supported candidates -- Sharron Angle in Nevada, who
many thought would never have a fighting chance to beat Majority Leader
Harry Reid. Angle now leads Reid by four points, 50-46 percent, according
to Rasmussen’s October 7 poll.

Even
though the “Conservative Kingmaker” has successfully picked
many of the Republican upstarts who are challenging the Establishment
candidates, his name is still not a household word … not yet.

Senator
Jim DeMint of South Carolina may not have the name recognition of a
Sarah Palin, but he’s a man on a mission. He’s been a leader
on issues of interest to gun owners and has a 100% (A+) rating with
Gun Owners of America.

More
than being a good vote, DeMint has been a leader who thinks of ways
to kill anti-gun legislation in the Senate and has successfully gotten
pro-gun legislation passed.

Whereas
President Obama has done much to destroy the Constitution and the 2nd
Amendment in the past two years, Senator DeMint has been a fierce defender
of our rights.

But
as much as he’s doing to change the face of Congress this November,
DeMint realizes that the battle for our future must be won in the hearts
and minds of the next generation.

It’s
a message that gun owners should take to heart.

In
his book, Saving Freedom: We can stop America’s slide into
socialism, DeMint says that many Americans want out of their “abusive
marriage with the federal government” and have asked him what
they can do help bring about real change.

DeMint
has a prescription, but it’s … um … not quite what
we have been used to hearing from Washington.

For
example, he quotes President John Quincy Adams who, in a letter to his
son, says that to be a good citizen, you must learn to follow the two
most important commandments: love God with all your heart and love your
neighbor as yourself.

“This
is not an admonition for government to love people,” DeMint says,
“it is a command for us to love people.” We have to live
it out in our lives.

So
don’t just talk about “family values,” he says, we’ve
got to work at keeping families and marriages together. Don’t
just rail against the national debt, we’ve got to live within
our own means as well.

In
other words, walk your talk.

In
the realm of Second Amendment rights, I’ve used DeMint’s
advice to encourage pro-gunners for years. It’s great to be an
activist for an issue you believe in -- like gun rights -- but one has
to be careful about trying to save the world, only to lose your own
family in the process.

Advertisement

After
the Columbine tragedy in 1999, I discussed the shooting with my own
children. I asked them what they thought should have been done to prevent
those kids from wreaking the havoc that they did. And I was pleased
to hear them say -- without any prompting from me -- that law-abiding
people (like teachers) should have been able to carry guns to stop the
killers.

Even
at their young age -- they were all under 12 at that time -- they understood
that guns save lives.

Well,
I told some fellow gun rights activists about this, and I remember one
saying, “I’ll go home tonight and ask my kids the same question.”
Well, to his shock and horror, his kids said that the way to stop future
Columbines was to have the government take guns away from the people.

Needless
to say … he was appalled.

But
why shouldn’t his kids say that? Isn’t that what the schools
are teaching kids today? One of the government textbooks being used
in public schools all over this country gives higher praise for the
United Nation’s Declaration of Rights than for our own Constitution.

This
textbook denigrates the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms
and completely ignores the 10th Amendment, which would teach kids that
the federal government’s powers are to be strictly limited.

While
it may not be true in every single classroom, it is certainly accurate
that -- on the whole -- what is being taught to our children is antithetical
to our American founding and the Constitution.

In
Saving Freedom, DeMint gives some practical solutions as to
how We the People can take back our kids’ education.
But regardless of whether you have children or not, his message to all
Americans is the same: Change starts with you.

Stop
waiting for someone else to come along, DeMint says, we all need to
get involved. Like George Bailey in the classic movie, It’s
a Wonderful Life, one individual can have a dramatic impact on
those around them.

DeMint
reminds readers how George Bailey is about to commit suicide until an
angel shows him how much worse his community would be if he’d
never been born -- there would be people who would have died (like his
brother); people who would be in jail; and so forth.

Likewise,
DeMint says, we can tremendously affect the lives of people around us
and, in many cases, even affect our entire nation. We must stop thinking
the answer to every difficulty is: “Gee, somebody ought to do
something about these problems.” Change starts with you!

Subscribe
to the NewsWithViews Daily News Alerts!

Enter
Your E-Mail Address:

What
a different message from the “Hope and Change” we’ve
heard preached from the White House which assumes that change must be
imposed from the top-down.

Saving
Freedom is a good book … it’s got very practical solutions
for change -- for real change -- and it’s available through the
Gun Owners Foundation website.

Erich Pratt is the Director of Communications for Gun Owners of America,
a national gun lobby with over 300,000 members. GOA is located at 8001
Forbes Place, Springfield, VA 22151. The phone number is (703)321-8585.